Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Free To Be...

So ABC Family, indisputable the best channel on basic cable television and perhaps televisions in general for LGBT representation, is changing its name to … wait for it … Freeform. The new rebranding is meant to reflect the channels, um, freeform approach to programming aimed squarely at what they call the new (network-coined) “Becomers” life stage. In short, it means anyone – regardless of age – who thinks/tweets/Instagrams like a millennial and/or whatever the next most highly sought after advertising target groups will be called.

As far as names of channels go Freeform is purposefully amorphous and pretty ridiculous. What does it mean? Who the hell knows! But the good news is the channel will continue its programming aimed – most solidly – at young women age 14-34. And the best news about that age group is they love shows with great LGBT representation. “Pretty Little Liars,” “The Fosters,” “Switched at Birth” and (cue wah-wah sound) the just cancelled “Chasing Life.”

But, all joking aside, the ABC Family name really didn’t convey the channel’s approach to programming anymore. So a rebrand in that regard makes sense. But what I love most about this entire evolution is that the gayest channel on basic cable television was founded by televangelist and noted bigot Pat Robertson as the Christian network The Family Channel back in the 70s. But today, we happily accept that “family” encompasses gay teenagers, lesbian moms and everyone else on the sexual otherness spectrum. Now that is truly ironic, and not the Alanis Morissette kind.

I can only ABC Family went with Freeform because ABC WhateverFloatsYourBoat and ABC TooGayToFunction tested poorly with focus groups. Still, whatever you call it, ABC Family/Freeform is still the channel that gave us an uninterrupted 3 minutes and 22 seconds of Emily Fields making out with girls. Welcome to brave new Freeform world, America. You’re gonna like it here.

p.s. Holy lesbianism, Batman, how does that video not have 900 million views already?